


like the breath of a sigh (you know my pain)

by thistidalwave



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the face of her depression from her break up with Mike, Tina decides to shed her goth image--and Finn likes what he sees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the breath of a sigh (you know my pain)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [imeldabrandt](http://imeldabrandt.livejournal.com) at the [glee_rare_pairs](http://glee-rare-pairs.livejournal.com) fic exchange.

Tina is pretty sure she is depressed.

Well, scratch that, she knows she’s depressed.

This _is_ depression, right? This whole listless, lying on her bed having work to do and knowing she needs to do it but just _not being able to do it_ because every atom of her being is just... tired?

Maybe not clinical depression, she admits, but she’s going to fail her senior year of high school, and she can’t even bring herself to give a shit.

She misses Mike. And she can’t even call him to tell him so because they’ve actually broken up and he wants _space_.

Her life _sucks_.

Tina shoves her pillow over her face just as her mother enters her room.

“You look like hell,” her mother observes.

“I _feel_ like hell,” Tina moans, her voice muffled by the pillow. “And it’s rude to just walk in my room like that.”

Her mother ignores this. “I have laundry for you to put away. I’ll put it...” She pauses, looking around the room. “Well, I’ll put it on top of this stack of graphic novels. There isn’t an empty spot to speak of.”

Tina grunts into her pillow. Her mother rolls her eyes. “Do the laundry, Tina. Try to cheer up.”

“My life’s over,” Tina mumbles.

“‘This too shall pass’,” her mother quotes at her before ducking out of the room and closing the door smartly behind her.

Tina chucks the pillow that has been covering her face at the door. “Don’t quote literature at me!” she yells.

She can hear her mom laughing through the wall. “It’s a proverb!” she calls back.

“Whatever,” Tina groans, rolling off the bed to her feet.

She starts going through her clothes, carefully straightening and smoothing the fabrics of her dresses and shirts and hanging them up, folding her tights and pants into neat squares and lining them up in the drawers. It’s a process she has thoughtlessly gone through many times before, but on that day in particular it somehow makes her even more depressed. Tina picks up a relatively simple black dress that she’s had for a couple years and stares at it. It’s normally one of her favourites, but she finds herself frowning at it.

Tina looks from the dress to the rest of her clothes. She isn’t as goth as she used to dress--she has _some_ brightly coloured clothing--but it’s mostly similar to the dress.

Boring. Dull. Repetitive.

Kind of like her life, really, she muses.

Tina shoves the dress onto a hanger and into her closet. She looks down at herself, tugging on the hem of the black tank top she is wearing to lounge around and feel sorry for herself.

 _Well, they do say that your appearance can do wonders for you._

\---

Finn rolls out of bed at the last possible second, much like he’s been doing for the past _his entire life_ , and pulls on the first articles of clothing he sets his hands on. He’s glad, not for the first time, that Kurt isn’t around to see him, because he’s pretty sure Kurt would force him to change, late for school or not.

He stumbles blearily to his locker, the drive over to school not having helped that much to wake him up (is that impaired driving or something? Finn thinks it is, but he also can’t bring himself to care). He pulls out the books he needs for his first class--twelfth grade math _again_ and Finn still doesn’t understand it half the time--and closes his locker with a slam.

“Bad morning there, Hudson?” a voice from behind him asks.

Finn jumps and turns around. “Just the--whoa.”

Tina grins at him. “The usual?” she fills in. They’ve become more of friends than they were in the past, now that a lot of the regular people that were in glee club have graduated, and Tina’s locker isn’t far from Finn’s, so she often stops by to say hi in the morning.

“Uh--what are you wearing?” Finn asks, unable to focus on anything but the curve of Tina’s boobs as emphasized by the strapless flower patterned dress she’s wearing. It ends at her knees, a glance down tells him, and her feet are adorned with pink flats that match the flowers perfectly.

“My face is up here, Finn,” Tina says, rolling her eyes. “Do you like my new look?”

He watches as she spins for him. Her hair is even done differently, with her bangs in a braid and a gentle wave down to her shoulders. “You look like Quinn,” he blurts out. Tina quirks an eyebrow, looking pleased. “It’s... weird. But you look... super good,” Finn finishes lamely.

She smiles at him. “Thank you! I’ll see you later.”

Tina scurries off down the hallway, her dress swirling around her knees. Finn watches, in a daze, until she turns a corner and he can’t see her anymore.

And then the bell rings, and _fuck_ , he’s late for class.

\---

Finn doesn’t see Tina for the rest of the day--they don’t even share the same lunch period, oddly enough--but he can think of little else. He keeps fantasizing about Tina in that _dress_ \--the way it hugs her curves perfectly and how different (how _pretty_ ) she looks without eyeliner and whatever other stuff she normally puts on that she hadn’t today.

She’s kind of driving him crazy, and it’s weird, because he knew she was good looking before, but he had never been particularly interested in anything but being her friend.

And now he’s pretty sure he’s interested in more.

But he needs to _not_ think about that during class.

When he gets to glee rehearsal after school, Tina’s already there, sitting between Artie and Blaine and laughing, probably at something one of them had said. He stops in the doorway to watch for a second before coming to his senses and moving to sit down in a chair behind her.

“Hey,” he greets them.

“Hey, Finn!” Blaine says cheerfully, smiling at him. “Have you noticed Tina’s new look?”

Has he _noticed_ , Finn thinks wryly. “Yeah, I noticed. I think she looks great.”

Tina smiles the same smile from that morning. “See, you two, _Finn_ thinks I look good.”

“I never said you didn’t look _good_ ,” Artie protests. “I just said you didn’t look much like yourself.”

Blaine nods. “Exactly.”

“Whoa, Tina, nice dress,” Sam says, stopping short in the middle of the choir room. “Way to change it up.” He holds out a fist for her to bump and Tina obliges.

“Thanks, Sam,” she says, smoothing the dress over her knees. Finn bristles a bit, glaring at Sam until he sits down and says something to Sugar, who looks at him like he’s the stupidest thing she’s ever seen. “You don’t get to decide who _myself_ is, Artie,” she continues. “I know it’s different, but I think it’s a change I need right now.”

“Yeah,” Finn agrees, nodding even though he’s not exactly sure what she means. She smiles at him again and he feels his stomach flip flop with--desire or something like that, he can’t be sure.

Mr. Schuester enters the room and starts talking, scrawling a word on the board and rambling about the lesson of the week or whatever. Finn is experienced enough to know that this lecture is mostly pointless, especially since it’s not likely something he hasn’t heard before.

He’s heard everything before.

He’s sick of it.

Sugar volunteers to sing. Finn preemptively leans forward, subtly covering his ears. She’s improved since last year, but she hasn’t improved enough for a solo. Sam stands as well, and Finn lets his hands drop. It’s kind of uncanny how Sam can make anyone sound good when they duet, especially Sugar.

They sing. Finn claps when they’re done. So does Tina and everyone else. Mr. Schuester passes out sheet music for a group number and dismisses them.

Finn is the last person to leave the room, so he flicks the lights off and pulls the door closed behind him. Tina is standing in the hallway. He blinks, thinking that maybe she’s just a hallucination--wishful thinking.

“Do you think you could drive me home?” Tina asks him.

“What?” Finn asks.

“Artie picked me up this morning,” she explains.

Finn blinks again. Okay, she’s not a hallucination. It’s still weird. “Why aren’t you going home with him, then?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the assignment,” Tina says, and Finn supposes that makes sense.

“Oh. Okay, sure.”

They walk out to the parking lot in silence. Finn gets into the driver’s seat of Kurt’s Navigator (lent to him with the promise that he will treat it like a princess in car form, since Kurt had no use for it in New York), and Tina hops into the passenger seat.

“So, uh, what _is_ the assignment?” Finn asks once they’re on the road. “And your house is this way, right?”

“Duets,” Tina answers. “Again. And yes, it’s just two blocks from yours.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Finn says, everything making a bit more sense now. “You want to do a duet with _me_?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Finn shrugs. “I dunno. We’ve never done a duet before.”

“If you don’t want to--I just thought--”

“No! No, I do want to. I mean, I don’t know who else I’d pair up with.”

“Great! So, um, I’ll work on finding a few options for a song tonight and run them by you tomorrow?”

Finn frowns. “You could just decide yourself. I wouldn’t mind.”

Tina rolls her eyes. “I’m not Rachel. I’d like your opinion.”

Finn feels like he should say something in defense of Rachel, but he really can’t deny her controlling nature. “Well, okay.”

“You could even come over and help me pick out a song tonight,” Tina suggests.

Finn glances at her as he stops at a sign and flips on the blinker. “Do you actually want me to?”

He sees her shrug in his peripheral vision as he makes the turn. “It would make it easier, I think. And we could make a final decision tonight rather than tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Finn agrees. He scans the houses on the block he’s driving down. “I forget what your house looks like.”

“Just up there, the blue one,” Tina points out. Finn pulls into the curb lane and parks the Navigator, shutting it off.

He gets out of the car and follows Tina to her house, pulling out his cell phone to text his mom and Burt that he’ll be home later.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Tina says as she unlocks the door and pushes it open. “My parents won’t be home until later. My room’s this way.” She kicks off her pink flats and Finn copies with his own sneakers before following her down the hallway.

Tina stops in a doorway. “Er ...sorry my room’s a mess.” Finn peeks over her head--it’s almost as bad as his room, but only almost, so he doesn’t really mind. He says as much and she laughs at him.

Tina picks her way over to her desk and sits down in her desk chair, booting up her laptop. Finn stands awkwardly beside her with his hands shoved into his pockets until she looks over at him. “You can sit down on the bed if you want.”

“Okay,” Finn mumbles, stepping back a couple feet and straightening out the bedspread before sitting down.

The next half hour or so passes with Tina playing various songs and Finn giving his opinion on them. Eventually there’s a lull in the noise while Tina scrolls through her iTunes looking for another potential song. Finn fidgets with the fabric of her bedspread.

“Do you miss Mike?” he blurts out, just to have something to say. And because he’s genuinely curious, if he’s being honest.

Tina leans back from her computer, turning to look at him. “We broke up,” she says, furrowing her eyebrows.

Finn shakes his head. He’d been so surprised when he saw their relationship statuses change on Facebook. “I know that.”

“I was just making sure,” Tina says. “Yeah, I miss him. A lot, actually.”

Finn nods. “I get that.”

Tina hums in response, not sure where Finn’s going with the conversation. She regards him carefully from her chair, then gets up and sits down next to him, smoothing her dress above her knees. Finn doesn’t look at her, fairly sure that this angle would give him way too much opportunity to stare down her dress.

“Do you miss Rachel?” Tina asks quietly.

He turns his head to look at her, his eyes meeting with hers. He nods, then looks back down at his lap. “I feel like such a failure. I spent four years of my life thinking the only thing that mattered was being popular and having the perfect girl, but I couldn’t even decide who the perfect girl was. I think I knew all along... but I’ve lost that chance now. She’s in love with her career--with the stage, you know? And I can’t begrudge her that. I spend a lot of nights just lying in bed thinking about all this... and I wish I could have been better for her. She deserved more than me.”

“But she wanted _you_ ,” Tina points out gently.

Finn blinks over at her, suddenly realizing who he’s talking to. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he stumbles out.

Tina shrugs. “Who else are you going to talk about it with? I don’t mind.”

“You probably don’t have any of these issues,” Finn continues. “You probably think I’m stupid or--”

“I don’t think I was ever good enough for Mike,” Tina interrupts. “It just took him going to college to realize that for himself.”

Finn stares at her like she’s grown a third boob. “What? Mike thought everything you did was _perfect_. He loved you more than I thought was possible. How could you think you’re not good enough?”

“How could you think Rachel deserved more than you? Why weren’t you good enough when she clearly kept going back to you?”

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s not,” Tina says, her voice matter of fact. “We’re just going to ha--”

Finn cuts her off by capturing her mouth with his, sucking her bottom lip and feeling a rush pooling just below his stomach. Tina is just starting to kiss back when Finn pulls away.

Tina stares at him, wide eyed and a bit breathless. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Finn says. “Showing you that you’re good enough? I don’t--um.” He blinks at her, his eyes momentarily dropping to her dress (yep, this is a good angle for boob creeping) before he snaps them back to her face.

“Ah,” Tina says, and reaches out to fist her hand around the front of Finn’s t-shirt and pull him back toward her so that their lips sloppily meet again. They move to better get a good angle, and Finn rests his hands on Tina’s hips as she runs her tongue along his upper lip. He parts his lips to allow her to deepen the kiss, moaning slightly into her mouth as she does so. Tina kind of finds that hot.

They continue kissing for awhile, lust building up in both their bodies as they reduce each other to unthinking bodies just _being_. Tina eventually remembers to let go of Finn’s shirt and slides her arms around his shoulders, pulling their bodies closer and gathering more purchase so she can really put her all into her kisses.

Finally Finn breaks away, his lips bruised and his eyes blown--he looks completely wrecked, and Tina marvels at seeing him with his guard let so far down. Her hair is messed on the side without the braid where Finn slid his hand and her own lips are faring the same as Finn’s. There’s a pink flush in her cheeks and somehow it makes her look even hotter than she already did, though Finn hadn’t thought that possible.

“Need to breathe,” he explains.

Tina nods. “We should move.” She gestures toward the rest of the bed. Finn slides back onto it, trying not to mess up the bedspread but mostly not caring. Tina follows, tucking her leg carefully between his thighs and leaning forward over his chest to kiss him again. He slides his hands over her back, causing her to shiver against him and slide her lips down his jawline, tracing wet kisses down his neck on her way to his collarbone, where she pays special attention. Finn makes a strangled exhaling noise and grabs her by the waist, flipping them over and making his own trail down her neck to the top of her right boob just above the fabric of her dress, sucking a mark into her skin there. Tina lets her eyes roll upward and close.

He runs his fingers lightly down her side, pulling away to look down at the dress, then up to her hair, moving his hand to card his fingers lightly through it. “I wanted to ask,” he says, “what’s up with the look change? You said you wanted to be more you, but I don’t really get it.”

Tina smiles sheepishly up at him. “I was bored with my clothes. I thought maybe switching it up would help me feel better.”

“Did it work?” Finn asks curiously.

“I don’t know,” Tina says, teasing. “Didn’t you say you like it?”

“Oh yeah,” Finn breathes. “I really do.” He kisses her again, slowly this time, then pulls away. “As long you do, I do.”

Tina smiles and pulls him back down to kiss her again.

It’s with regret that Tina has to push Finn away from making his way to make her left boob match her right one. “It’s nearly five-thirty,” she says. “My mom will be home soon.”

Finn glances at the clock on her bedside table and frowns. “Oh. Yeah, I should be getting home in time for supper, anyway.”

They get up and straighten out their wrinkled clothes. Finn peers into the mirror, trying to get his hair to lie flat and mostly failing until Tina lends a hand. She walks with him back to the door.

“See you tomorrow,” she says after he’s put his shoes back on and is turning to the door.

Finn stops and turns back. “We never picked a song,” he realizes.

Tina waves him off. “I think I have a good idea from what you said.”

He nods. “Okay. Uh.” He shoves his hands awkwardly into his pockets. Tina raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you maybe want to go on a date with me sometime?” Finn blurts out, his words stringing together.

Tina laughs. “Sure, we could do that,” she says. “Text me, okay?”

“‘Kay. Bye, Tina,” Finn says, grinning. He practically skips out the door and down the walkway to the Navigator, car keys spinning around his finger.

Tina leans against the door, smiling to herself. The feelings of happiness and potential bubbling up inside her are a welcome change indeed.


End file.
